But sometimes fate brings a player to Mizzou without any work from a coach.

Missouri freshman Beau Brinkley likes his anonymous life on the football field.

"That's good. I don't want anyone to know my name," said long snapper Beau Brinkley. "If nobody knows my name I'm doing my job."

Brinkley is the Tigers long snapper. A job he picked up in a snap a long time ago.

"My 6th grade pee-wee team didn't have a long snapper," said Brinkley. "I wanted to play and it was just another way to get on the field."

Beau's dad played NAIA football at Missouri Valley and showed him everything he needed to know.

"We went out in the backyard and he showed me how to hold the ball and everything," said Brinkley. "Just did repititions and then. From then on out I've been long snapping ever since."

Big schools didn't recruit Brinkley. Instead he caught the attention of Tigers co-captain Tommy Saunders.

"I recruited him out of Kearney," said senior wide receiver Saunders. "I came in and told Coach Hill and Coach Yost about him every week."

Saunders saw a lot of himself in Brinkley.

"He was pretty much going through the same things I was going through out of high school," said Saunders. "He hadn't had a lot of big schools recruiting him or anything like that. I knew he could play just from his work ethic."

"He thought I was pretty good so he starting talking to the coaches for me," said Brinkley. "He told me I was good enough so I went with his word."

Both Saunders and Brinkley are from Kearney. Both walked-on at Mizzou. And now both are starting for the Tigers.

"We had him here all summer working hard and we had him on the side," said senior kicker Jeff Wolfert. "We really begged the coaches to give him a shot as a walk-on true freshman."

The shot for Brinkley came against Illinois. A perfect snap he'll never remember.

"Pretty much I don't remember snapping that first ball," Brinkley said. "I just remember getting down there and evidentally my job went well."

After perfect punt snapping the first game of the season Brinkley added the field goal and extra point snapping duties to his resume.

"I'm in his ear every practice when it's a little bad snap," Saunders said. "I'll be on him in practice. I'll be on his tail."

"If I get my goal of four years of perfect snaps, then I've completed that goal and it's time to make a new goal," said Brinkley.

Brinkley says if he didn't walk on at Mizzou he'd probably be playing at tight-end and long snapping at Missouri Southern.